“Hardcastle’s got a bonnier wench up there,” said the shammocky rogue, striving to rally his wilting fellows—“bonnier than Nita, if it comes to that.”
The chance shaft found its mark. The girl stood silent for a moment, gathering years behind and years to come into her hands. When she spoke at last, they drew away as from some instant menace in their midst; and each poor fool began to scratch at his wounds afresh and to long for ale.
“They couldn’t bring Hardcastle to Garsykes—thirty of our strong men could not. But little Nita can.”
Her voice was bitter quiet. She did not seem to see the frowsy press of men about her. Aloof, hard as mid-winter on the barren uplands, she saw Hardcastle taken in toils of her devising—and not Hardcastle alone.
“What will you do?” asked the rogue with the splintered arm.
“Aye, what will I do? Let him wait, first of all, till he’s sick with fear for another. Then I’ll put fire of hell into him before ever he comes to our village in the hills—and afterwards——”
A man’s full-throated curses broke across the dawn’s stillness, and Long Murgatroyd came lurching up, his arms thrown about two comrades who steadied him on either side. They had clapped rough bandages about the wound that Donald’s pike had given, and he had thought his end was come till now, in the grey dawn, he saw Nita.
“A rare warrior, you,” she said, her bitterness let loose afresh.
The will to live returned to Murgatroyd. Hardihood came back though his wound dripped and snarled.
“Aye,” he said—“and I’ll wive you, soon or late.”